Whatever San Diego voters thought they were getting when they narrowly elected Michael Aguirre city attorney last November, it couldn't have been the man described by some of the disillusioned parade of subordinates who have left his office.

In the five months since Aguirre was sworn in as the city's top legal official, 15 deputy city attorneys have resigned, several under duress, and six have been fired outright by Aguirre. That's 21 of 69 lawyers in the City Attorney's civil division and a slightly smaller number in the criminal division. Some, fearing retribution, won't talk about why they left. But others are talking, either on the record or on background but not for attribution. The descriptions they give of Aguirre's conduct, if accurate, can only be described as very troubling.

The stock legal phrase "hostile work environment" wouldn't begin to cover what they say is Aguirre's abusive, bullying, intimidating, profanity-laced management style. Cashiered subordinates and others who have resigned describe Aguirre as volatile, paranoid, a bully who commonly resorts to verbally abusing and intimidating those who work for him, especially those who dare to disagree.

"These aren't legal or policy issues. They're fitness-for-office issues," says Matthew Cord, a former deputy city attorney who resigned recently. "If any other department head in the city treated people the way Mike treats people, they'd be dismissed."

Aguirre's ire, say former subordinates, is directed in particular at those who dissent from any aspect of his priority, if not obsessive, focus on the city's pension battle. Aguirre sees it as an epic struggle to uncover what he believes is a corrupt conspiracy that underfunded the city's municipal pension fund and destroyed the city's credit rating.

"You're either part of the cleanup or part of the coverup," is the way one knowledgeable source describes Aguirre's no-middle-ground approach to the pension scandal imbroglio.

Yet, at least some of those who have fallen out of favor with Aguirre are still willing to acknowledge his strengths.

"He's a good lawyer, a very good litigator, very smart; and he's well intentioned," says Deborah Berger, who ran unsuccessfully against Aguirre in the primary last year, later endorsed him and worked for his election but was fired nonetheless last month.

Asked if she regrets endorsing Aguirre, Berger says, "Mike has accomplished some things that needed to be done by the city attorney and has changed the role of the city attorney but I regret the impact on my colleagues."

For his part, Aguirre disputes every accusation against him and describes the City Attorney's Office as in "great shape" for the challenges ahead, most particularly the pension battle. In a two-hour interview Thursday, Aguirre parried each allegation brought by his critics.

"I could have fired everyone and brought in 120 new lawyers. But I didn't. We tried to work with everybody. It's a management miracle, I would say it's a miracle that more people haven't left in a completely changed culture. A lot of our people love it. Some didn't fit in. For every person that has left, I have a sense of disappointment because they didn't fit in."

But then Aguirre pointedly disparaged those he fired.

EARNIE GRAFTON / Union-Tribune

Michael Aguirre leaves a news conference earlier this year after addressing the media.

Berger, he said, abused her authority, was "universally not liked" and acted as a "free agent" talking to City Council members and having lunch with Aguirre adversary District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis "without telling me." Aguirre called Berger "not a team-player person."

Deputy City Attorney Leslie Devaney, Aguirre's general election opponent, was allowed to stay on for a time but was fired in January. Said Aguirre, "Devaney spent most of her time trying to undermine me."

Jim Chapin, a deputy city attorney whose wife, Lori, is general counsel to the San Diego City Employees Retirement System, was fired, Aguirre said, because of an inherent conflict of interest resulting from his wife's position. "There was a great risk that confidential information would leak out – everything I'm trying to do, he was against," said Aguirre.

Sources close to Chapin categorically deny that he worked on any pension matter that would conflict with his wife's employment.

Aguirre disputes Chapin's subsequent sworn statement that Aguirre told him he had two weeks to persuade his wife to resign her position or he would be fired. Aguirre called Chapin's accusation "a false statement under oath."

Aguirre described former Deputy City Attorney Penny Castleman, a respected 20-year veteran who was fired last January, as someone "other lawyers said was 'a divisive, retaliatory person.' She was very tight with the MEA (Municipal Employees Association)," Aguirre said, referring to the union resisting his pension-reduction proposals. "The MEA is doing everything they can to disrupt the (City Attorney's) Office," Aguirre charged.

Aguirre said he fired Deputy City Attorney Frank Devaney, Leslie Devaney's husband and now a Superior Court judge, because "he was so bitter after the election, there was just no way he could work as a colleague. His loyalties didn't flow to what I wanted to do."

Deputy City Attorney Paul Cooper, who questioned Aguirre's request for a police bodyguard, was fired last December. Aguirre calls him "disloyal."

More than a few of Aguirre's critics among those who once worked in the City Attorney's Office are deeply disturbed by his with-us-or-against-us mindset and his instinct to attack those who oppose or criticize him.

"There's not a little paranoia there, there's a lot," said one. "It's very scary. He's not a nice person, not a good person."

Despite the departure of 21 deputy city attorneys in five months, Aguirre scoffs at the suggestion that his office suffers from widespread dissatisfaction and low morale.

"The idea that this is a hostile work environment, that's false. It is a really fun work environment – the heartbeat of an office is to keep everyone focused on the mission. When the mission becomes the number one objective, then you get past all these incidentals.

"The fact that a bunch of these people who couldn't leave and just be in good spirits and have good manners and just move onto something else, I mean get a life," Aguirre said.

Aguirre's critics are not persuaded.

Castleman cites Aguirre's treatment of Jim Chapin as emblematic of a hostile, even bizarre, environment in the City Attorney's Office.

"Before Jim left, Aguirre assigned an attorney to sit in Chapin's office and monitor him. She even followed him to the restroom and waited outside."

Castleman describes Aguirre as obsessed by questions of loyalty. After she and Chapin were fired, Castleman says Aguirre demanded that others in the office drop their personal friendships with the two.

"He's told people, 'If I find out you've maintained your friendship with Penny Castleman or Jim Chapin, I consider that an act of disloyalty and therefore you'll be fired," Castleman says.

Castleman, who says she was given no reason for her termination, believes she was fired because she was gathering signatures to form a Deputy City Attorneys' Association and because she disagreed with Aguirre's proposal that the traditionally sacrosanct attorney-client privilege could be waived unilaterally by the City Attorney's office, "if he deemed it in the city's interest."

Castleman filed a wrongful termination claim with the city and says she plans to sue for damages over her dismissal. A second claim from another fired former City Attorney employee has been filed.

"I don't know of any deputy city attorney who isn't looking for another job," says Castleman.

Former Deputy City Attorney Matthew Cord charges that Aguirre has created a culture of fear. "Everybody is afraid. Mike has made it abundantly clear that he prefers robotic yes men to thoughtful attorneys and that unless you loudly support and agree with everything he says, you're fired," Cord says.

Says another Aguirre critic with first-hand experience in the City Attorney's Office:

"Anytime anybody disagrees with him, he attacks them. He doesn't like communicating with people. He's an island. He's not listening. This isn't just a question of style, it's a matter of effective leadership. Basically he's a bully."